They Had Been Told, They Said, That
Some Catastrophe Would Happen To The Place When People Lived Upon Nittas,
And Neglected To Cultivate Corn.
June 2d. We departed from Seesukunda, and passed a number of villages, at
none of which was the coffle permitted to stop, although we were all very
much fatigued:
It was four o'clock in the afternoon before we reached
Baraconda, where we rested one day. Departing from Baraconda on the
morning of the 4th, we reached in a few hours Medina, the capital of the
King of Woolli's dominions, from whom the reader way recollect I received
an hospitable reception in the beginning of December 1795, in my journey
east-ward.[25] I immediately inquired concerning the health of my good
old benefactor, and learnt with great concern that he was dangerously
ill. As Karfa would not allow the coffle to stop, I could not present my
respects to the king in person; but I sent him word, by the officer to
whom we paid customs, that his prayers for my safety had not been
unavailing. We continued our route until sunset, when we lodged at a
small village a little to the westward of Koota-kunda, and on the day
following arrived at Jindey; where, eighteen months before I had parted
from my friend Dr. Laidley; an interval during which I had not beheld the
face of a Christian, nor once heard the delightful sound of my native
language.
[25] Vide pages 51 [Second half of chapter IV. Transcriber], 72
[Beginning of chapter VII. Transcriber.].
Being now arrived within a short distance of Pisania, from whence my
journey originally commenced, and learning that my friend Karfa was not
likely to meet with an immediate opportunity of selling his slaves on the
Gambia, it occurred to me to suggest to him that he would find it for his
interest to leave them at Jindey, until a market should offer. Karfa
agreed with me in this opinion; and hired from the chief man of the town,
huts for their accomodation, and a piece of land on which to employ them,
in raising corn, and other provisions for their maintenance. With regard
to myself, he declared that he would not quit me until my departure from
Africa. We set out accordingly, Karfa, myself, and one of the Foulahs
belonging to the coffle, early on the morning of the 9th; but although I
was now approaching the end of my tedious and toilsome journey, and
expected in another day to meet with countrymen and friends, I could not
part, for the last time, with my unfortunate fellow-travellers - doomed,
as I knew most of them to be, to a life of captivity and slavery in a
foreign land - without great emotion. During a wearisome peregrination of
more than five hundred British miles, exposed to the burning rays of a
tropical sun, these poor slaves, amidst their own infinitely greater
sufferings, would commiserate mine; and frequently of their own accord
bring water to quench my thirst, and at night collect branches and leaves
to prepare me a bed in the Wilderness.
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